Sonic Team

Overview

Sonic Team is arguably one of Sega's most well-known and prolific development teams. The core team of Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, and Hirokazu Yasuhara originally gathered at Sega's consumer division in 1990 when the company was trying to create a character to rival Nintendo's Mario. They chose the simple name Sonic Team, which has stuck ever since.

In 1995, Sonic Team was officially established as a division within Sega, known internally as Sega CS3 R&D Division. The studio was headed up by Yuji Naka, with Naoto Ohshima and Takashi Iizuka directly below. The studio was renamed to Sega R&D 8 in 1998 after the AM/CS distinction was abandoned, and in 2000, R&D8 was spun off as an independent studio, at last being officially known as Sonic Team.

In 1999, following the US release of Sonic Adventure, Sonic Team USA was established in San Francisco as Sonic Team's US satellite studio. Another Sega studio, United Game Artists, was merged into Sonic Team in October 2003, and Sonic Team itself was merged back into Sega in July 2004, though it has continued to operate, responsible for the Sonic the Hedgehog and Puyo Puyo franchises. After Yuji Naka left Sonic Team, Akinori Nishiyama, headed the team in Japan. After Sega Studio USA was integrated back into Japan Takashi Iizuka headed the team. At Sega it currently operates as the second consumer R&D division.

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Trivia

Producer guru Naka Yuji, the reknown programming genius behind Sonic, had a really cool tatami floored office on the top floor of the Sega Corp. building where he oversaw his dedicated team of developers. He was known to reward competency in his staff and free-lance support. In spite of his gruff, rockstar exterior, he was surprisingly approachable during game show parties and often spoke of the challenge of personal creative growth.